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Miliband in row over adoption of baby on the nod

THE minister who flew to America to adopt a baby faces a political row after the Tories yesterday questioned whether he had used his position to win preferential treatment.

The call came after it emerged that officials in David Miliband’s own department had given the go-ahead for the adoption.

Those seeking to adopt children from overseas have to be issued with a certificate of eligibility.

It would have been impossible for officials not to have noticed an application from one of their ministers, given that only nine such documents were issued between January and October last year.

Miliband was education minister from May 2002 until last month when he was moved to the Cabinet Office in the reshuffle that followed the resignation of David Blunkett as home secretary. Miliband, a rising star of new Labour, was in America at the time of the reshuffle.